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The Wanderlust music festival began right on time as the musical/performance-art circus troupe The Muytator hit the stage promptly at 9:00 pm. The Muytator include three drummers with full drum kits, a three horn rhythm section, keyboards, guitar, ex-Oingo Boingo bass player John Avila on bass, and assortment of dancers. The act’s loud funk/ska music and showy acrobatics energized the crowd, many of whom had attended the concurrent peaceful yoga festival at the site earlier in the day.

The two most notable aspects of The Muytator’s show were the use of fire and the sexiness of the dancers. These elements frequently combined in exotic and erotic combinations as the performers would twirl lit swords and balls of fire on chains while enacting ritualized love scenes that included plenty of bumps and grinds. Despite the volume of the music, the attention was almost always focused on the sultry, if a bit purposely sleazy, performers.

While the physical use of incendiary objects got things hot, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings showed how the power of soul can get things even hotter. The Dap-Kings began the performance with some tight instrumental numbers while teasing the audience about what was coming up ahead, before finally introducing Jones and turning the flames up a notch.

Jones went through her repertoire of songs from her first two albums, with crowd pleasers like “I’m Not Gonna Cry”, “How Do I Let a Good Man Down”, “My Man is a Mean Man“, and more, all the time strutting and dancing. She and the Dap-Kings were in perfect sync, starting and stopping on a dime, as Jones would go into a tirade about the kind of respect she expected after coming home from work or the behavior she expected from someone to whom she gave her love.

Jones encouraged crowd participation and at times the audience was so loud they drowned out the amplified Jones and her band. She also called up various members of the crowd onstage, as well as the dancers from The Muytator, and had them sing and dance along with her on the steamy love songs. Even with the improvisational nature of performing with others she had not practiced with, Jones never missed a beat or a note. The 53-year-old Brooklyn by way of Georgia singer said she was worried about not being able to keep up because the show was held in the mountains, but Jones’ energy never flagged. Jones and company played until after midnight to a satisfied audience.

The SummerStage double bill of Matisyahu and Umphrey’s McGee made for a wildly diverse spectrum of fans from hippie to orthodox Jew, both young and old. It’s because listening to jam bands (and the pre-requisite toke) are a definitive rite-of-passage for today’s youth—and an equally enduring nostalgia trip. Studying the counterculture legacy of their parents, they understand that jam bands are the gateway dancing music for white adolescent males. But it takes time. Naturally Umphrey’s McGee played through several numbers, like “Higgins”, which was too enmeshed with dense arpeggiating guitars, before its sound ever loosened and opened up. The same applied to the dancers in the crowd. With two prolific lead guitarists—Brendan Bayliss and Jake Cinninger—carrying the majority of melodies and solos, their finger-twisting riffs required some etude-like passages to get their blood flowing. By “Turn and Run”, however, the group was practically on cruise control, undulating on the same wavelength and improvising with charted efficiency. They ended their set with a cover, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”—which made relative sense being the longest real song the Beatles composed.

After dismantling McGee’s enormous stage set up to clear space for Matisyahu and his gyrating hops and twists, his five-piece backing ensemble sonically slid into a soft jam before the man himself emerged. Perhaps no reputation precedes any other rising artist more than Matisyahu’s: A degenerate Deadhead turned Hasidic Jew turned international reggae and hip-hop success story. Donning a weathered red trucker hat, his vocals also took a few songs before they were entirely aligned with the band. As Matisyahu sang the incredibly catchy “Time of Your Song” he quickly brought out Nosson Zand who dropped a number of exuberant rhymes before ceding the stage to his mentor. Before Matisyahu’s performance I’d never seen a Hasidic Jew dance or spin as much to such heavy cadences. Throughout the night his band kept a precise but flexible groove, and incorporated a phenomenal conga player midway through. Hits like “King Without a Crown” and “Jerusalem” got wild cheers, but nothing compared to the response Matisyahu’s impressively huge stage dive received near the end. Matisyahu himself was equally pleased saying, “My grandpa would be proud.” So were all the young hippies.

There are almost two different Richard Swifts. There’s the poetic, melancholy Swift whose swirling songs are dreamy in the same way 1930s black and white films are. On the flipside, there’s the entertainer side more akin to an Elton John. Live, he plays this second side up and there’s more emphasis on performance and having a good time rather than dwelling in the lyrics, which is also more consistent with his newest release.

Swift has technically put out eight releases within his nearly decade long career. 2009 finds him touring on his most recent release, The Atlantic Ocean, with a full four piece backing band. Swift alternated between guitar and electric piano with accompaniment that included trumpet, keyboard, drums, guitar, and bass. Swift also whistled and played harmonica while hammering on the electric piano keys.

Swift’s vocals were also a little more nasal live and less lush and husky than on some of his albums. Occasionally, as in “Lady Luck” they also took on a bit of soul. Gone was the sense of delicateness inherent within some of his songs and, because of this, the set took on a much different mood than a fan of his past recordings may expect, especially when referring to previous albums such as 2005’s The Novelist and Walking Without Effort. Swift appreciated the applause and came off as rather modest throughout his hour-long set and was treated to the audience clapping for an encore.

The tenth annual Latin Alternative Music Conference presented a mix of new and old at Central Park’s SummerStage. Rising DJ—and founder of Buenos Aires’ ZZK Records—Él-G performed an interim set that straddled the styles and rhythms of the evenings other two acts, the Brazilian samba-funk and hip-hop artist Curumin and Argentinean Juana Molina. While Él-G even incorporated a remix of Animal Collective’s “My Girls”, much of his set was reserved and inconspicuous, as if waiting to unleash his subtropical mixes. Earlier in the evening Curumin eased into his set with a cover of Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”, eventually turning up the tempo. Even though he was mostly static, singing behind his drum kit, his music was dynamic and rhythm perpetual. Both sampled and electronic melodies were woven into samba grooves and the mostly seated crowd grew restless. Near the end of his performance he played the best “Beat It” cover I’d heard in the last two weeks, transforming it into a sensual half-time lament. Juana Molina began with the opening—and title—track to 2008’s Un Dia. Gently singing the words “one day” and then looping them, she layered more vocals and then guitar passages on top before initiating the audience with more adlibbed vocals and musical yelps. Finally her bassist and drummer innocuously entered such that the song itself seemed to sublimate the casual utterances and nuances of everyday words and sounds. Over and over Molina created her signature ethereal blend of vocals, guitars, and electronics—with added bass and rhythms. Near the end of the night she played a solo song, “¿Quién?”. She wrote it after a weeklong trip to NYC years ago ended with her young daughter fearing complete abandonment, and the chorus echoes her daughter’s longing. What made many of her songs so captivating, however, was the scope of vocal textures she was able to produce and layer: Vocables, ombasure manipulation, and rhythmic variations. Paired with her music’s soft undulating cadences, her songs paralleled the night’s gentle breezes.

Though the four-piece instrumental band Explosions in the Sky is no stranger to Chicago, this show was made special because it marked their tenth anniversary together as a band. Over the past decade, throughout the band’s five studio albums and consistent touring, they’ve perfected their experimental sound and their ability to turn it into a massive shared experience. It’s difficult to find many other bands of this genre that can match their sonic energy in a way that both adeptly acknowledges a gentle calm brightness and at other times a loud chaos. Like most of their song titles, their music accepts a sort of hopefulness that feels empowering and utterly complete.

Playing a gorgeous 90 minute set, Explosions in the Sky forgoes banter and instead lets each song seamlessly crash and evolve into the next, creating a sense of new wonder for each performance. Guitarist Munaf Rayani is the spokesperson for the band and typically makes a humble statement at the beginning and end of each performance about how much the band appreciates the audience and how special it is for them to perform. This time, he added a special note at the end that he hopes the band is together forever with the vast wall-to-wall audience in boisterous agreement.

Though guitar and pedal effects create a huge portion of their sound, Chris Hrasky’s drumming allows the songs to reach new levels of tension. The band plays with very little foreground light on their faces and bright beams of background light that spotlights the audience more than what is happening on stage. Munaf Rayani is the most animated of the three guitarists, often swirling his guitar around the Texas flag draped over the speaker cabinet for his amp.

Similar to many of their individual songs, their set began with a serene calmness and built slowly into a powerful crescendo of epic proportions. The audience provided a passionate response, throwing hands up in the air, clapping spontaneously during the songs, and cheering wildly for more. Highlights of the set included: “The Birth and Death of the Day”, “Catastrophe and the Cure”, “The Only Moment We Were Alone”, “Memorial”, and “Your Hand in Mine”.

With their alternating tumult, reeling guitars, and shimmering sense of dreamy grace, it’s difficult to not see some similarities to bands of the shoegaze genre. The band is often classified as post-rock though, and perhaps they take the elements of shoegaze to a new level. It’s difficult not to feel a sense of removal from time and space when they are playing and imagine a strange sort of postmodern wasteland where you’re bound to see a few ghosts. In the midst of the struggle, there seems to be hope for redemption and recovery. Perhaps Explosions in the Sky is this generation’s answer to My Bloody Valentine when the words would only get in the way.